Time and the Conways

By JB Priestley
Directed by Jemima Levick
A co-production with Dundee Rep Ensemble

If you could turn back the clock, would you do it all again?

1919, the Conway family house, Yorkshire. Mrs Conway and her family have it all, the war is over; the children look set for a bright and prosperous future; it's Kay's 21st birthday.

But, in a twist of time and with a brief glimpse into the future, we discover that life doesn’t play out as expected. Aspirations sour, relationships fail and the truths of the Conway family's lives are revealed.

Priestley's play is an extraordinary manipulation of time and the fates, coming to a climax as he subverts the narrative and takes us back to the original moment when this successful family began to sow the seeds of their own downfall.

Time and the Conways was written in 1937 and illustrated JW Dunne's Theory of Time. Alongside the better-known An Inspector Calls, Time and the Conways is part of Priestley’s series of 'Time Plays' that toyed with different concepts and theories of time, and is widely regarded as the best of this series.